Jack Olesker: Confessional

Leisure Horror: March 1990, 361 Pages

Firstly let me apologize for going missing from the site for a few days - especially after only having joined very recently.

However I do have an excuse. You see, someone tried to kill me. It was a struggle over a few days, but finally I managed to win out. But it was a close run thing.

My attacker was a guy by the name of Jack Olesker, and his choice of weapon was a book called "The Confessional".

This promised sooooooo much. Look at that cover! It's clear from the blurb that it's about a possessed CONFESSIONAL - how can you go wrong with that?!?!?

Well let me tell you - start by having NOTHING happen for 92 pages. Chat chat chat, introduce characters - a LOT of characters. Then, have the first "incident" introduced, and promptly forgotten for another 50 pages.

Next you continually break up the text by switching between characters for no good reason. It never moves the plot along, and we don't learn anything new, but as long as the characters keep spewing out, it'll make the book longer.

Then have some wildly over-the-top sequences that read as though they came from another book entirely. I can only surmise the action sequences were part of the original outline, and the author filled in the gaps once he found a publisher.

Then ruin the end by having a character turn into a clairvoyant - and have someone die in such a ridiculous way, it makes you laugh.

Okay, maybe there are too many spoilers there - but honestly this book stank (I'll probably get in trouble now and find it's someones favorite!)

I can usually read a book in a day, but I found myself finding other things to do while going through this. I'm one of those that can't stop half way through a book, once started I have to finish. And finish I did - thank goodness. At times I felt as though I was fighting for my life though.

This book was AWFUL. And I don't recommend it.